I
patronymic · Latin script
Meaning: The ninth letter of the English alphabet, called i and written in the Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
I is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common surname.
- KRSouth Korea1 in 7as 이(measured from records)
- USUnited States≈1 in 508Kas 이
- UYUruguay1 in 11K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than I itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- South Korea (measured from records)
- #103 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 129 (measured from records)
- 1 in 11K (inferred from the name graph)
7,307,237 named 이, 2015
of 19M surnames
Highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled 이 in KR South Korea, US United States, AU Australia and 2 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
The ninth letter of the English alphabet, called i and written in the Latin script.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
I counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | #2 | 7,307,237as 이 | 1 in 7 | 7.6M | 이 | 129 |
| MO Macao | #13 | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 219 | — | 이 | 1 |
| US United States | — | ≈660 est. | ≈1 in 508K | — | 이 | 32 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈500 est. | ≈1 in 51K | 1 | 이 | 5 |
| PL Poland | — | ≈470 est. | ≈1 in 81K | 143 | — | 8 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 295 | 1 in 11K | 295 | — | 1 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 37K | — | 이 | 13 |
7,307,237 people counted by KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants, 2015. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
I is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, pron., nga, ngi; neg. nga, ngi
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In kr, save, deliver, rescue him. alia ham/mo kdldntse tsin, lit God gives a person his head, i. e. he saves, delivers, rescues him. This expression is used in reference to a recovery from illnes, the safe return from battle &c.; if used of a woman , it generally means that she has got sa- fely through her confinement. hold kdmbe gdiigin, lit. I hold a person's head, i. e. I
as a wordKanuri-English Vocabulary (in African Native Literature)
In cdo, fNgid. A coll. word, as in ,ngiA (Jiff id, odd, uneven, what remains after a division. i Ngid. A coll. word, as in iUgid. i.ngid or ^ngid ngauk、 doubting, hesitating ； ^ngid. sioh^ hioJc) or ^ngid jpwang) nik^ to. doubt a while ； ,cA'《dj 、ngi& or ch'-mik^ (iigid, startled and doubt- ing, as when a matter is first mentioned.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, used in the North, (Pe king). the morning, early, previous. “early rice’ a mid-day feast as distinguished from main feast in evening. very early, (céng-ca). straw of first rice crop. the morning market. the first crop. early tea, 7.e., the best. morning audience, given by of
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, your junior, young folk to eat late, (when hungry) is as good as having rich food. “T, your humble friend'’—as a lady in writing to equals. to lead, to pull, to draw, to restore
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 18 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | KOSIS — 2015 census surnames | 2015 | 7.6M | #2 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 295 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 143 | #1,625 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 135 | #1,589 |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2008 | 1 | — |
| UY Uruguay | Montevideo Open Data — Nombres por año y sexo (1940–2012) | 1986 | 1 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 1996 | 1 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 1989 | 1 | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name I mean, and where does it come from?
- The ninth letter of the English alphabet, called i and written in the Latin script. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does I have the most bearers?
- In South Korea, the national register counted about 7.3 million people named 이, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is I most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, I is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 11 thousand people — even though South Korea holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name I?
- In Uruguay, the national register counted 295 people named I, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
- How common is I compared with other names?
- In South Korea, I is the 2nd most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about I?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/iThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “I” — the 2nd most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.